NUMBER ONE
In Meander that morning people began to gather early at the land-office,
for it was the first day for filing, and a certain designated number,
according to the rules laid down and understood before the drawing, must
appear and make entry on their chosen tracts.
There had been a good deal of talk and excitement over the nonappearance
in Meander of the man who drew the first chance. The story had gone
around, from what source nobody knew, that he would lapse, in which case
Number Two would become Number One, and all along the line would
advance. Number One would have to be there to file first, as Number Two
could not be entered ahead of him, and if he did not step up to the
window when it opened, his chance was gone forever.
The United States Government would accept no excuses; the machinery of
its vast, admirable business could not be thrown out of gear for an hour
or a day, and stand idle while the clerks waited for the holder of Claim
Number One to come from some distant part and step into his own. So
there was a good deal of nervousness and talking, and speculating and
crowding forward in the waiting line, as the hour for opening the office
drew near.
At the head of the line, holding a card with certain figures on it,
stood Axel Peterson, a bony-faced man with lean, high shoulders,
engineer in the flour-mill at Meander. Peterson strained his long neck
and lifted his chin as if his loose collar bound him and choked his
aspirations.
It was a racking hour for Axel Peterson, who had been offered a sum
which was riches to him if he would file on the land described by the
figures on the card, pay its purchase price to the government on the
spot with the money provided him for that purpose, and then step out.
Already he had signed an agreement to make a deed to it. However, the
land was yet in the mists of uncertainty just ahead, beyond his grasp.
For it was stipulated in his agreement that if the-holder of the first
choice should appear in time to file, then Peterson was to hand over the
money which he carried in his pocket to purchase immediate title to the
claim. In that case, Jerry Boyle, the Governor's son, who stood side by
side with Peterson before the window and held Peterson's agreement to
deed certain described lands in his hand; in that case Jerry Boyle would
be free to open negotiations with the holder of the first chance.
There was no secret among those gathered to file regarding what was
going forward at the head of the line. It was generally understood,
also, that others were on hand to grab the same piece of land as that
which Boyle was so eager to get into his possession. Gold, some said.
Others were strong in the statement that it was coal and oil. At any
rate there was another man present who had been active with Peterson,
but he had arrived too late. Boyle already had the Scandinavian down in
writing.
Milo Strong was in his place, hoping in his heart that Dr. Slavens would
not appear, as the physician's lapse would set him one forward. Off to
one side, among hundreds gathered to witness the filing on lands which
would mean the development of a great stretch of country around Meander,
and thereby add to its prosperity and importance, were William and
Horace Bentley and Agnes.
They watched the clerks in the land-office arrive and enter through the
side door. A shelf had been arranged in one of the front windows of the
office, past which the entrants could file without going into the
building. At nine o'clock this window would be opened. It was before it
that Peterson and Jerry were standing.
William Bentley looked at his watch.
"Seven minutes more," he announced.
"He'll never come," said Agnes, shaking her head sadly. "His chance is
slipping away."
"I've hoped right up to this minute that he would come," said William,
"but I drop out now. It would have been such easy money for him, too."
"Yes; Boyle's got that fellow tied up to relinquish to him the minute
the entry is made," Horace added. "I know the lawyer who drew up the
papers. It's illegal all through, but they say Boyle's got such a pull
through his father that anything he wants will go."
Until that hour Agnes had kept her faith in Dr. Slavens and her hope
that he would appear in time to save his valuable claim. Now hope was
gone, and faith, perhaps, had suffered a tarnishment of luster.
For that is the way of human judgment. When one whom we have expected to
rise up out of the smoke of obscurity or the fog of calumniation fails in
what we feel to be his obligation to the world and ourselves--especially
ourselves--faith falters in its place, and gives way to reproach, bitter
words, hot arraignments. There is no scorn like the scorn of one who has
been a friend.
And still Agnes kept her faith that Dr. Slavens was blameless for his
unexplained disappearance and prolonged absence deep-anchored in her
heart. But there was a surface irritation at that moment, a disposition
to censure and scold. For nothing short of death should keep a man away
from the main chance of his career, thought she, and she could not
believe that he was dead.
It was altogether disappointing, depressing. He should have come; he
should have moved the encumbering obstacles out of his way, no matter
what their bulk. Not so much for his own sake maybe, when all was
refined to its base of thought, as for the redemption of her faith and
trust.
"I don't care to stay and see them file," said she, turning away. "I'll
get enough of it, I suppose, when my turn comes, waiting in line that
way in the sun."
"There's a special stage out for Comanche at eleven," said William, his
watch in his hand. "If I can get a seat I'll return on it. It's time I
was back in the shop."
"For," he might have added if he had expressed his thoughts, "no matter
what I think of you, Agnes, I see that it would be useless for me to
hang around and hope. Dr. Slavens has stepped into the door of your
heart, and there is no room for anybody else to pass."
But he left it unsaid, standing with his head bent as if in meditation,
his watch in his hand.
"Two minutes more," he announced.
"I'm moving from the hotel," said she quickly, "to a room I've taken
with a dear old lady in a funny little house among the trees. It's
cheaper for me while I wait to file. I'll see you to say good-bye."
She hurried away, leaving the two men standing looking after her, Horace
smiling, for he did not altogether understand. William could see deeper.
He knew that she was afraid lest her disappointment would burst out in
tears if she remained to see Axel Peterson square his elbows on the
shelf before the window and make entry on Claim Number One.
A clerk within the office was pounding on the window-sash, for the paint
which the building had been treated to in honor of the occasion had
gummed it fast. Axel Peterson, straining his long neck, swallowing dry
gulps, looked to the right, the left, the rear. The ends of his fingers
were fairly on Claim Number One; nobody was pressing forward to supplant
him and take away his chance.
Of course, in case Boyle could not induce the holder of the first
chance, in the event that he _might_ yet come, to file on the coveted
land, then there would be a chance left for Peterson. So Peterson
knew--Boyle had made that plain. But who could resist the amount Boyle
was ready to give? Nobody, concluded Axel Peterson, feeling a chill of
nervousness sweep him as the window-sash gave and the window opened,
showing the two clerks ready, with their pens in hand.
The preliminary questions were being asked; the card with Peterson's
signature on it was taken out of the file for its identification--although
he was personally known to everybody in the town--for no detail of caution
and dignity could be omitted on an occasion so important as that; Axel
Peterson was taking his breath in short bites, his hand trembling as he
took up the pen to enter his name when that moment should arrive; his
voice was shaking as he answered the questions put to him by the clerk.
There was a stirring down the line, and a crowding forward. From the
outer rim of the people gathered to bear witness to the important
ceremony there rose a subdued shout, like the expression of wonder or
surprise. The volume of this sound increased as it swept toward the
office. Those in the line, Axel Peterson first of all, saw a movement
in the crowd, saw it part and open a lane for a dusty man on a
sweat-drenched horse to pass.
One of the clerks arranged the detail-map of the reservation before him
with great deliberation, his pen ready to check off the parcel of land
when the entrant should give its description. The other spread the blank
on the desk, dipped his pen, and asked:
"What tract do you wish to file on, Mr. Peterson?"
The man on horseback had forged through the crowd and brought his
stumbling beast to a stand not a rod away from Axel Peterson's side.
Peterson had viewed the proceeding with a disturbing qualm. Boyle, as
talkative before as a washerwoman, now grew suddenly silent. His mouth
stood open impotently; the gray of a sinking heart came over his face as
he looked long at the battered man, who had dropped the reins to the
ground and was coming toward them on unsteady legs.
Then, in a flash, Boyle recovered his poise.
"Quick! Quick!" he called to the clerk, thrusting an impatient hand
through the window. "Give him the paper and let him sign; you can fill
in the numbers afterward!"
The clerk owed his appointment to Boyle's father when the latter was in
Congress; so he was ready at heart to obey. But it was an irregularity
which might rebound with uncomfortable result. Thus he hesitated a few
seconds, and as he hesitated the road-stained horseman pushed in between
Axel Peterson and the window.
"You're a little hasty," said the man. "It's a few seconds until nine
yet, according to my time. My name is Slavens, and I am Number One."
The people in the crowd pressed closer, closing around the tired horse,
which stood with its head drooping, its flaccid sides heaving. Jerry
Boyle said nothing, but he put into his pocket the paper which he had
been holding ready in his hand for Axel Peterson's signature the minute
the entry should be made, and turned his back. A black-visaged man with
shifting, greasy eyes shouldered, panting, through the press of people
and put his hand on Slaven's arm.
"I'd like to have a word with you before you file," he requested.
Slavens looked at him severely from the shadow of his battered hat. The
man lacked the bearing of one who inspires confidence; Slavens frowned
his disapproval of the approach.
"It means money to you," pressed the man, stretching out his hand and
showing a card with numbers penciled on it.
Axel Peterson had stood gaping, his card with numbers on it also in his
hand, held up at a convenient angle for his eyes. Dr. Slavens had read
them as he pushed Peterson aside, and the first two figures on the other
man's card--all that Slavens could hastily glimpse--were the same. And,
stranger still, they were the same as Hun Shanklin had recorded in
telegraphed reply to the request from Jerry that he repeat them.
That was enough to show him that there was something afoot worth while,
and to fortify him in his determination, strong in his mind every mile
of that long night ride, to file on that identical tract of land, come
of it what might.
"I'll talk to you after a while," said he.
Boyle said nothing, although the look he gave the forward man was
blasting and not without effect. The fellow fell back; something which
looked like a roll of bills passed from Boyle's hand to Axel Peterson's,
and with a jerk of the shoulder, which might have been intended as a
defiance to his rival or as an expression of resignation, Boyle moved
back a little into the crowd, where he stood whispering with his
friends. Peterson's face lit up again; he swallowed and stretched his
neck, wetting his dry lips with his tongue.
The preliminaries were gone over again by the clerks with deliberate
dignity; the card bearing the doctor's signature was produced, his
identity established, and the chart of the reservation again drawn
forward to check off the land as he gave the description.
"What tract have you selected, Dr. Slavens?" asked the clerk with the
blank.
Dr. Slavens drew from the pocket of his coat a crumpled yellow paper,
unfolded it, and spread it on the shelf.
"The northwest quarter of Section Six, Township Twelve, Range
Thirty-three," he replied, his eyes on Hun Shanklin's figures.
Jerry Boyle almost jumped at the first word. As the doctor completed the
description of the land he strode forward, cursing in smothered voice.
"Where did you get that paper?" he demanded, his voice pitched an octave
above its ordinary key by the tremulous heat of his anger.
Dr. Slavens measured him coldly with one long, contemptuous look. He
answered nothing, for the answer was obvious to all. It was none of
Boyle's business, and that was as plain as spoken words.
Boyle seemed to wilt. He turned his back to the winner of Number One,
but from that moment he stuck pretty close to Axel Peterson until
something passed between them again, this time from Peterson's hand to
Boyle's. Peterson sighed as he gave it up, for hope went with it.
Meantime a wave of information was running through the crowd.
"It's Number One," men repeated to each other, passing the word along.
"Number One got here!"
Hurrying to the hotel, Agnes was skirting through the thinner edges of
the gathering at the very moment when Dr. Slavens turned from the
window, his papers in his hand. As he went to his weary horse and took
up the reins, the creature greeted him with a little chuckling whinny,
and the people gave him a loud and hearty cheer.
When the cheering spread to the people around her, Agnes stopped and
asked a man why they did that. She spoke a little irritably, for she was
out of humor with people who would cheer one man for taking something
that belonged to another. That was the way she looked at it, anyhow.
"Why, haven't you heard?" asked the man, amazed, but enlarged with
importance, because he had the chance of telling somebody. "It's Number
One. He rode up on a horse just in the nick of the second and saved his
claim."
"Number One!" said she. "A horse!"
"Sure, ma'am," said her informant, looking at her queerly. "Here he
comes now."
Dr. Slavens passed within a few feet of her, leading his horse toward
the livery stable. If it had not been that the wind was blowing sharply,
turning back the flapping brim of his old hat, she would have repudiated
him as an impostor. But there was no mistaking him, in spite of the
strange clothing which he wore, in spite of the bloody bandage about his
head.
And at the sight of that bandage her heart felt a strange exultation, a
stirring leap of joy, even stronger than her pity and her pain. For it
was his vindication; it was the badge of his honor; it was his
credentials which put him back in the right place in her life.
He had come by it in no drunken squabble, she knew; and he had arisen
from the sickness of it to mount horse and ride--desperately, as his
condition told--to claim his own. Through the leagues of desert he had
come, through the unfriendly night, with what dim hope in his breast no
man might know. Now, sparing the horse that had borne him to his
triumph, he marched past her, his head up, like one who had conquered,
even though he limped in the soreness of bruised body.
People standing near wondered to see the tall, pale woman put out her
hands with more than a mother's pity in her eyes, and open her lips,
murmuring a name beneath her breath.
The Bentleys, who had seen Dr. Slavens arrive, had not been able to
force their way to him through the crowd. Now, with scores of others,
they followed him, to have a word with him after he had stabled his
horse. As they passed Agnes, William made his way to her.
"He arrived in time!" he cried triumphantly, the sparkle of gladness in
his honest eyes. "He has justified your faith, and your trust, and
your----"
She put out both her hands, tears in her eyes, as he halted there,
leaving unsaid what there was no need to say.
"I'll tell him where to find you," said he, passing on.
In her room at the hotel Agnes sat down to wait. Peace had come into her
soul again; its fevered alarms were quiet. Expectancy trembled in her
bosom, where no fear foreshadowed what remained for him to say. Her
confidence was so complete in him, now that he had come, that she would
have been satisfied, so she believed at that hour, if he had said:
"I was unable to come sooner; I am sorry."
For love is content with little while it is young.
Agnes thought of her prettiest dress, tucked away in the little
steamer-trunk, and brought it out. It was not extremely gay, but it was
light in color and fabric, and gave a softness to the lines of the body,
and a freshness of youth. And one needs to look carefully to that when
one is seven-and-twenty, she reflected.
Her fingers fluttered over her hair; she swayed and turned before the
glass, bringing the lines of her neck into critical inspection. There
was the turn of youth there yet, it comforted her to see, and some
degree of comeliness. He would come soon, and she must be at her best,
to show him that she believed in him, and give him to understand that
she was celebrating his triumph over the contrary forces which he had
whipped like a man.
Faith, thought she, as she sat by the window and looked down upon the
crowd which still hung about the land-office, was a sustaining food.
Without it the business of all the world would cease. She had found need
to draw heavily upon it in her years, which she passed in fleeting
review as she looked pensively upon the crowd, which seemed floundering
aimlessly in the sun.
All at once the crowd seemed to resolve into one personality, or to
become but the incidental background for one man; a tall man with a
slight stoop, whose heavy eyebrows met above his nose like two black
caterpillars which had clinched in a combat to contest the passage. Here
and there he moved as if seeking somebody, familiarly greeted,
familiarly returning the salutations.
That morning she had seen him at the head of the line of men waiting to
file on land, close beside Peterson, who believed himself to be Number
One. She had wondered then what his interest might be, and it was
largely due to a desire to avoid being seen by him that she had hurried
away. Now he turned as if her thoughts had burned upon his back like a
sunglass, looked directly toward her window, lifted his hat, and
smiled.
As if his quest had come to an end at the sight of her, he pushed across
the street and came toward the hotel. She left the window, closing it
hurriedly, a shadow of fear in her face, her hand pressed to her bosom,
as if that meeting of eyes had broken the lethargy of some old pain. She
waited, standing in the center of the room, as if for a summons which
she dreaded to hear.
The hotel at Meander had not at that day come to such modern contrivances
as telephones and baths. If a patron wanted to talk out on the one
wire that connected Meander with the world and the railroad, he had to
go to the stage-office; if he wanted a bath he must make a trip to the
steam laundry, where they maintained tubs for that purpose. But these
slight inconveniences were not all on one side of the house. For if a
message came to the office for a guest in his room, there was nothing for
the clerk to do but trot up with it.
And so it came that when Agnes opened her door to the summons, her
bearing had no touch of fear or timidity. In the hall she faced the
panting clerk, who had leaped up the stairs and was in a hurry to leap
down again.
"Mr. Jerry Boyle asks if he may have the pleasure of seeing you in the
parlor, Miss Horton," said the clerk.
"Tell Mr. Boyle," she answered with what steadiness she could command,
"that I have an appointment in a few minutes. I'm afraid that I shall
not be able to see him before--before--tomorrow afternoon."
That was enough for the clerk, no matter how near or how far it came to
satisfying the desires of Jerry Boyle. He gave her a stubby bow and
heeled it off downstairs again, kicking up quite a dust in his rapid
flight over the carpet in the hall.
As if numbed or dreaming, Agnes walked slowly about her room, touching
here or there a familiar article of apparel, and seeking thus to
recall herself to a state of conscious reasoning. The events of the
morning--the scene before the land-office, her start back to the
hotel, the passing of that worn, wounded, and jaded man--seemed to have
drawn far into the perspective of the past.
In a little while William Bentley came up for his bag--for in that hotel
every man was his own porter--and called her to the door. He was off
with Horace on the eleven o'clock stage for Comanche. Next morning he
would take a train for the East. Dr. Slavens sent word that he would
come to the hotel as soon as he could make himself presentable with a
new outfit.
"Horace will stay at Comanche a while to look around," said William,
giving her his card with his home address. "If there's anything that I
can do for you any time, don't wait to write if you can reach a
telegraph-wire."
If there was pain in his eyes she did not see it, or the yearning of
hope in his voice, she did not hear. She only realized that the man who
filled her life was coming soon, and that she must light again the fires
of faith in her eyes to greet him.